NORWOOD: Charlotte Walsh recounts her Boston Marathon experience

Charlotte Walsh, the owner of Charles River Running, was one of the thousands of people who ran in the 2013 Boston Marathon. She completed the race shortly before the first bomb exploded on April 15.

Brad Cole

Charlotte Walsh, the owner of Charles River Running, was one of the thousands of people who ran in the 2013 Boston Marathon. She completed the race shortly before the first bomb exploded on April 15. For a video of her interview and coverage of the rest of the 100 Days, 100 Faces series, visit www.patriotledger.com/bostonmarathon.

Can you tell me about your experience on Marathon Monday?

Marathon Monday for me was a big day in my life. For any runner, running the Boston Marathon is the pinnacle achievement. We had trained as a group with my running club, we had prepared and we had gone to the expo the day before. We were very excited for Marathon Monday. I got up bright and early, met my friends in Westwood, and we drove to Hopkinton together, and we were all excited to have a wonderful, nice day.

Where were you when the bombs went off?

When you finish a long race, time kind of slows down for you. As soon as I crossed the finish line, I used my phone to text my sister and let her know I had crossed and that I was going to get cleaned up. She quickly texted me back and told me she was stuck on the Green Line and hadn’t made it to the finish line to see me. She told me to take my time. As I was going through the finishing chute, it seemed like a longer time. It seemed like three or four minutes before I heard the explosions. After that, I just continued to the end of the chute and tried to meet up with my group.

When I got my photo in the mail of me finishing the race, with the time and the clock above my head. It said 4:09. I Googled what time the bomb went off, and it was 4:09:43, so it really only 43 seconds after I crossed the finish line.

How has the bombing impacted you?

It was kind of a delayed reaction. I knew that I wanted to do something for my community and get runners together right away, because I felt like I needed to be with the people I ran with that day and be close with my family and things like that. That’s why we organized the walk at the store right away, because a really good way to heal is to surround yourself with your community, with your friends and talk about the event, and run and walk. That is another good way to process feelings and emotions that go along with such a traumatic event.

But it did take a while to not feel quite so anxious and sad and bothered and worried about the whole event.

Now I think I can look back on it as a wonderful day for me and it was a wonderful day for the runners. It was really seeing Boston in its finest moment. People come out for this marathon because it’s their day. The city kind of owns this race and people have personal ownership in it.

They really celebrate the whole day, whether you’re a runner or you’re not a runner. People come out and cheer you on and pass you a glass of water. Even though this terrible event occurred, I think the people of Boston still celebrated the day, and after the event occurred, they really came together as a city to help the people that were affected. I look back on the day as really a day when Boston really was at its best, and really showed itself as a community of people who care.

Staff writer Brad Cole can be reached at 781-433-8339 or bcole@wickedlocal.com. Like The Norwood Transcript and Bulletin on Facebook and follow @bradcolewrites and @NorwoodTranscri on Twitter.